Raise your voice, open your mind, unlock your imagination

The visual text 127 hours produced by Danny Boyle is a true story of a mountain climber Aron Ralston’s incredible adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm trapping him. Over the next five days (127 hours) Ralston weighs out his life, battles the elements and finally comes to the conclusion that he’s not going to get saved so he takes action. He amputates his arm so he can make his way back to civilization in hope that he will survive. This is a gripping and emotional movie showing extreme courage and determination.

The theme endurance is addressed throughout all of Ralston’s ordeal. He manages to endure through many different ways. The most important was taking his mind off his trapped arm, he did this by making a video of himself everyday. He pretended to be on a TV show where he was a guest, “Good morning everyone! Its seven o’clock here in canyon land USA! And this morning, on the boulder, we have a very special guest, self-proclaimed, American superhero, Aron Ralston! Let’s hear it for Aron!”. He would blame himself for getting trapped and not telling anyone where he was, “You see, I’m some sort of, well a big fuc*ing hard hero. And I can do anything on my own, you see?”. He blames himself for everything that happened as this is his way of telling himself that he brought himself in to this trouble so he has to get out himself. By making this video everyday allows him to take his mind off everything else and have a bit of fun in his very bad situation.

This Movie connects with the rest of the world as we all have to endure tough times in life, they probably won’t be as extreme as Aron Ralston’s experience, but ones that puts us out of our comfort zone. It is important that you deal with these appropriately which could mean that you have to make sacrifices worth a lot. In Ralston’s case it was his arm that he had to sacrifice to survive, this is the very severe end of decisions but in a common situation it could be a change of location because of work. This is usually a very hard decision for people as they feel comfortable in their original location with friends and people they get along with. This change puts most people out of their comfort zone as they have to make new friends and sacrifice their old ones. There are many other cases in where you have to sacrifice things for a better outcome.

The visual text teaches us that there are very strong people in society and when things take a turn for the worst there is always a way out. This is seen with Ralston when he manages to get out of a so called impossible situation. On top of this it is always better to be prepared and tell people where you’re going so that situations like these can be avoided as you can get rescued. After this incident Ralston gets back out and climbs and explores other mountains. This shows that even if something goes wrong you shouldn’t give it up instead go back out and keep exploring and doing what you love. But this time with more knowledge. It also highlights the pure mental strength that Ralston had.

This connects with my personal viewpoint as I believe that anything is possible if you have the right mind set and mental strength. This is proven by Aron Ralston as he managed to get out of a life-threatening situation that not many people would of. The mental strength he showed is extraordinary and is definitely something that I strive to have. I personally haven’t experience anything as extreme as this but for sporting races mental strength is essential as it allows you to push harder than what you ever thought.

I would recommend this visual text to anyone as it shows you an incredible story of survival. The structure gets the viewers gripped and emotionally attached. It teaches you a lot about what you thought the human body can handle and that with strong mental strength you are able to do anything. Aron Ralston goes on to say, “You’ll never find your limits until you’ve gone too far”.